Alien invasion

Hundreds turned out for Kington Langley's third annual Scarecrow Weekend with the theme of Out of This World - and residents stretched their imaginations and creative powers to come up with some bizarre and fantastic creations.

A total of 65 entries were taken, so the village centre was heavily populated with extraordinary scarecrows and competition for first place was fierce.

The scarecrow weekend was set up by Elizabeth Coles and Valerie Young, after Mrs Coles saw a similar event in a village in the north of England.

In Kington Langley's festival, scarecrows are made by individuals and families rather than committees.

"We had lots of entries and the scarecrows were very complex and there was such a lot of variety," said Mrs Young.

"Some were very detailed and well crafted. Others were made by the children with a lot of enthusiasm and enjoyment.

"It's a great event and really brings the village together."

Judges finally decided on two first prize-winners the Great House in Kington Langley, which created a crashed space ship with two Martians, and Tam Reed, who created an alien with lots of glittering decorations to scare off the crows.

The Pattemore family were awarded third prize for their Wurzel rocket.

The first-prize winners received a garden centre voucher and the Pattemores received a box of chocolates.

Prizes were also awarded to the creators of scarecrows most popular with the people of Kington Langley and the votes again resulted in a tie.

The Turek family's scarecrow, a blue dragon, and the Bloxsome family's astronaut were joint winners.

The scarecrows were put up along a trail all around the village and a map was drawn up so walkers, who paid £1 to follow the trail, could see them all.

The Out of This World theme gave people plenty of inspiration and other entries included wizards, angels, the Loch Ness monster, Star Wars, ET and the Man in the Moon.

"A lot of work went into the scarecrows though we did have an invisible man which consisted of a suspended hat with a pair of shoes at the bottom." said Mrs Young.

The weekend events also included a quiz with space-related questions, which was won by Kirsty McGregor, who received a box of chocolates as a prize.

Refreshments were served from a stall on the village common and many charities and groups organised stalls to raise funds, including the Brownies, Cancer Research and the Meningitis Trust.

The main beneficiary of the day was the Raise the Roof fund.

The special appeal was set up to fund repairs for the village church, and the total is still to be calculated.

The church was open over the weekend, and specially adorned with flowers.

"We had a lot of help from the school this year," said Mrs Young. "The children had an art week before the scarecrow weekend and made 12 scarecrows which were displayed along the school fence."

Villagers also enjoyed a particularly lively social event on the common on Saturday night, with a band providing the music.

Anita Sartain and Ena Weston helped organise the event along with Mrs Young and Mrs Coles.

But Mrs Young said it had been set up as a village event.

She said many people had stepped forward to help out with manning the different stalls and baking cakes.

"We'll probably have another event next year.

We'll think about it when we've recovered from this one," she said.

"It's a good way for people from the village to get together and have a chat.

While we do raise money for the local community it is really first and foremost a true community event."

ssingleton@newswilts.co.uk